Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Going through a box of old photos taken over a number of years, I picked out a few that brought back some particular memories. Sometimes what was done came easy, other times more entailing some struggle. Meeting and getting to know the people who ask me to make furniture for them is a big part of it. I think the photos give an idea of some of the diversity of individuals that I have done work for, and how their tastes and homes helped to direct me to go in a design direction for the particular commission, and resulted in a fairly wide array of styles. California is a place with rather eclectic tastes, from very traditional to wanting something that has never been done before. No doubt a lot of work was approached that would never have been so, without the inspiration from the customers, and the challenge of finding my own interest to portray into a requested job is something that I much like doing. I receive a lot of satisfaction from building furniture that 'fits' well into the location where it will be used.

I don't particularly subscribe to the "simple is best" philosophy, I like small details that hopefully catch someone's eye over time, maybe add some fun and personality to the work. My own sense tells me about the ornaments, what my eye wants to see, and the scale. I try to be careful that the smaller details don't cloud up the important overall form of the furniture, put trust into an order of things to convey a message.

Mostly quite old work here, done when my shop was located in the states.